


You may wish for an apple, or an orange- but you will get a peach.

by junebugtwin



Category: The Breakfast Club (1985)
Genre: Allison loves all her friends goddammit, Allison thinks about murder, Allison's parents fucking suck, Angst, Bender is secretly soft, Child Neglect, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Love, Platonic Relationships, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:53:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22619662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junebugtwin/pseuds/junebugtwin
Summary: The woman is looking in her purse, rooting around for something- Allison doesn’t understand why it takes her so long to find what she wants- her purse isn’t like Allison’s bag, full of everything, everything that she needs. It’s just a purse. It’s got lipstick and two different packs of peppermint gum, and napkins and a bookmark and a flyer about a reading club, her wallet, her keys, a granola bar- the chocolate chip kind, and a straw, white and plastic and crumpled. Allison knows because she rummaged through it once. Laying out each individual item, searching for clues. It didn’t tell her anything. It didn’t tell her everything. Allison’s bag would have, had anyone bothered to look.---or, I get emotional about what Allison's life must be likeor, or- I get emotional about Bender and Allison being friends
Relationships: John Bender/Claire Standish
Comments: 6
Kudos: 81





	You may wish for an apple, or an orange- but you will get a peach.

**Author's Note:**

> Listen. Listen. Bender says 'I've seen you before you know' and like, its never brought up again?? do they live in similar neighborhoods? How do they know each other?? Also- also- I haven't seen enough fic dive into Allisons very fucking 'un-satisfactory' relationship with her parents, so I'm here to do that now. Fair warning, there's a bit of swearing from Bender (of course) and mentions of abuse of all kinds. 
> 
> Enjoy!

The woman is looking in her purse, rooting around for something- Allison doesn’t understand why it takes her so long to find what she wants- her purse isn’t like Allison’s bag, full of everything, everything that she needs. It’s just a purse. It’s got lipstick and two different packs of peppermint gum, and napkins and a bookmark and a flyer about a reading club, her wallet, her keys, a granola bar- the chocolate chip kind, and a straw, white and plastic and crumpled. Allison knows because she rummaged through it once. Laying out each individual item, searching for clues. It didn’t tell her anything. It didn’t tell her everything. Allison’s bag would have, had anyone bothered to look.

Allison wants to ask what dinner is- if she can help in some way- or if they need her to help pay for the meal if they ordered out. The words are stuck uselessly inside her mouth, glued and goopy and suffocating, blocking her air. It’s one of those days, the ones where she can’t speak. She likes them better than the ones where she can’t think.

She just stares instead, trying to communicate helpfulness through just her eyes. But her eyes are hidden behind her messy bangs. The woman isn’t going to look, she knows, the woman isn’t going to swipe aside her hair gently, like she used to when she was mom. No one looks at Allison anymore- she knows it’s not their fault that she can’t turn the invisibility off, it’s not their fault they can see everything but her.

She sets her bag down loudly, staring straight at the woman, blinking repeatedly- like morse code, she thinks. The woman glances backward, and quickly dismisses the sound at the sight of Allison, going back to searching through her things. (The lipstick and the two types of peppermint gum, and the napkins and bookmarks, and the reading club flyer, and wallet, and keys, and chocolate chip granola bar, and crumpled straw. All worth more than Allison.) Apparently the woman doesn’t know morse code.

“Leftovers in the fridge if you want.” The woman offers distractedly, finally picking the flyer out of her purse, smoothing over its now rumpled edges, and Allison stares at the movement. The woman’s hands look so soft, her fingers so kind, such bright nails. She wants to touch her hands, to hold them and feel them and roll them around in her own. She grips the worn fabric of her sweater tighter, fist buried in the black material.

Allison wants to say ‘okay’ she wants to say ‘thank you’ simply and casually and the woman will smile and maybe they will talk as Allison eats her cold pasta. Allison opens her mouth. Allison feels like she’s going to barf, like trying to force sound out of her mouth will only result in acid and liquid and bile and vomit and old mushed up food. She closes her mouth.

Allison moves quietly towards the banged up fridge, tilting her head so she can keep the woman in her eyesight at all times, hoping for something. Maybe the woman will act or move or speak in some way, and it will all become clear. Why Allison is like this, why the woman is like this, why they aren’t a family anymore, just the man and the woman and Allison.

Allison picks up the tupperware, momentarily enjoying the feel of the cold plastic on her skin. She brings it to the table, and sits, slowly- imagining herself like some sort of ancient, moss covered beast- bones creaking at every step. Maybe that’s why she is the way she is- she’s not meant for this time. Displaced. She fits right in with still water, and reeds, and waving pine needles. Animals flock to her, comforted, she loves them, loves their eyes. Humans confuse her. She is not one of her species.

“I’m going out. Your dad’s home I think.” The woman says, sounding busy as she texts, pulling herself up smoothly, getting ready to go. Allison wants to ask where she’s going- even though she knows- wants to ask how long she’ll be, if she’s excited, if she wants Allison to save her some pasta. Allison can’t take her eyes off of the sloppy red texture of the sauce, cold and unappetizing. Why did she bring this out? She’s not going to eat it. It’s too bitter. Too cold.

The woman sighs, and Allison can see her body move out of the room from the corner of her vision.

Allison washes her fork, even though she never used it- puts the lid back on top of the container, and puts it in her bag. She gets up, and shuffles towards the door. The woman is already long gone- old beat up blue car vacant from the gravel driveway. The man is sitting in the living room, watching T.V.

She puts her boots down forcefully, too loud for the man not to hear over the buzz of the television. She imagines him asking her where she’s going so late at night, or how she plans on getting there without a car, maybe even just surprise that she’s bothering to use the front door instead of her bedroom window.

He doesn’t move, muttering something at the T.V. She puts on her boots, and laces up an over sized jacket over her over sized sweater, and heads out- old door creaking sharply at her exit. It’s not a good door- they’ve been broken into before. It wasn’t too bad, there wasn’t much to steal.

Its cold outside, and the entire world has a grainy blue film over it, blurring details and lowering the lighting. It’s beautiful. She wants to describe it to someone, wants to sing about it. She moves down the steps, listening to them squeak methodically as she slowly makes her way down.

She walks over the yellow lawn, hating the gross crunch of dead grass, but unable to make herself move around it and onto their driveway. Her legs seem to want to only go forward- that’s fine with her, it’s where she was planning on going anyway. She reaches the street and begins to walk, eyes following the dead tree branches in the sky, taking in their tangled limbs and creeping stretching arms longingly. She wants to be a tree- one like them, sitting over a nice neighborhood and watching children play. She supposes this isn’t a nice neighborhood, and it’s been a long time since any children played on these lawns, if they ever did. Maybe she is a tree, and she just hasn’t noticed yet. She wonders why no one ever told her- she’d tell someone if they turned into an inanimate object one day, no matter how little she knew them.

She decides she probably isn’t a tree by the time she gets to the right house.

If her neighborhood is depressing, then this one is suicidal. Here there aren’t even woods to block the ugly, and trash sits in the place of tacky dollar store lawn ornaments. The deflated tires, broken lawn chairs, and moldy pieces of wood are strewn about the front yards here, instead of the back. The fences are all chain link, instead of falling picket.

It is malicious. His house more so.

John Benders house is nothing like him, dilapidated and rotting and evil- with storm clouds roiling over its head and a cold spot surrounding its bricks- old invisible blood spilling out from every crevice- she imagines she can smell the pain.

She walks around to the back, not worried about the monster- he was gone this time of day on the weekends, down to a pub, and wouldn’t be back until late at night. She knows because she followed him once. She wanted to kill him, but she didn’t know how to hide the body. She will do it, at one point. That way John won’t have to.

She bends down to John Benders bedroom window- poking just barely out from the cold lumpy ground. He must not get much light from it, she thinks, brought almost to tears by the thought. She takes a moment to compose herself, and then knocks firmly. Three times in a row, a pause, and then a fourth. She always knocks like that, so people know it’s her. She’s not sure anyone has noticed.

She waits for a minute, and then the window is opening, and her friends face is peeking out. He looks just as confused as he did the first time she visited, and as he has all the subsequent times. She thinks love confuses him, which she understands. She loves him anyway.

“What?” He asks, feigning irritation. She knows it’s not real because John shows aggression through yelling, or through fake freindlyness and sarcasm. She’s glad he’s not really annoyed with her, so she smiles slightly. He looks at her for a moment, and the feeling of eyes on her skin, ones that search up and down for injuries or sadness or hurt- it makes her want to fly with joy. She can feel wings sprout on her back, feathers blooming under her many layers.

She knows John thinks she’s being physically abused by the man and the woman. She knows he thinks that because he always checks her for marks. She knows because once when she had tried to run away- one of the first times- he had seen her crouched blankly on the side of a road, shivering in the wind. He had been so small. So had she. She’s glad the man and the woman don’t hit her- one time she thought the man would, after a school meeting, all her teachers saying the same thing- broken, crazy, odd, freak- he had looked at her so angry and embarrassed, he had raised his hand. He had raised his hand. He had raised his hand. He was going to. He was going to hit her. Then he stopped, and scoffed, and turned away. She’s glad he didn’t hit her, she wished he wouldn’t have tried it out first.

She shrugs at John, because she can’t talk yet, and he rolls his eyes, and moves away. That means come in. She does, wiggling as quickly as she can manage through the small opening, before letting herself fall haphazardly to his floor.

She hears him move towards her sharply, concerned about her well being- muttering ‘jesus!’ under his breath. She’s tempted to wait, here and let him turn her around and check for concussion- but that feels too much like lying, and she’s trying not to lie anymore- not when people care about what she’s saying now.

She gets up, and turns to shut the window before turning back to John. This will give him time to arrange himself like he doesn’t care about her falling.

He’s sitting now, on his bed causally, tossing some stray clothing into his closet- she doesn’t understand why he’s trying to neaten up that particular thing- his bedroom is a mess. She steals his things constantly and he never notices. (she puts it all back of course- even the stuff she knows he won’t miss)

He looks back up at her, intense eyes searching her face once again before moving briefly back down to the rest of her body- it’s not sexual, not the way he looks at Claire- he’s just making sure she’s okay.

She does the same, eyes quickly cataloging his clothing and body and mannerisms. He doesn’t have any new visible bruises, but from the way he’s keeping pressure off his one foot she can tell the monster must have hurt it somehow. She thinks of cutting the monsters leg with the woman’s car keys.

“So…What d’ya, want _now_?” He asks, pretending to be bored. She quirks her head, shifting her thoughts for a moment. Her throat is less goopy right now, but it still wouldn’t be great to speak with, so she instead pulls out her bag and reaches inside. She finds the container right way, and pulls it out, offering the leftover pasta to John with a small smile.

He blinks, startled, like a stray cat noticing a gently outreached hand. She wants to be bigger than him, so she can surround him and protect him and keep him warm. She shakes the pasta enticingly.

John snorts, and grabs the tupperware, raising his eyebrows.

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that right?” She likes to imagine he’s referring to a piece of art, mostly because he says it with such obvious fondness. She wonders if he knows how easy he is to read.

She nods, and sits down on his stained carpet, legs criss-crossing under her long dark skirt. He opens up the lid, takes a sniff, and begins to eat, using the fork she washed to scoop cold rigatoni into his mouth.

She speaks finally, finding her mouth free of tar and glue and throw up, just filled with the musty air of his basement and his spicy cologne. She likes the smell just as much as she likes Claire’s flowery perfume.

“I had a bad day.” She says quietly, looking at him with expectation. He could say ‘so what’ and huff, and roll away- sometimes he does stuff like that. She doesn’t like it any more than he does.

He looks at her seriously, fork tapping against plastic as he continues to eat ‘nonchalantly’ his body posture leaning forward slightly.

“Yeah?” He asks, clearly listening if she wants to talk. She feels a beat of affection so fierce she’s afraid it will destroy her completely- she’s not made for this sort of emotion but here it is anyway. She wants to hug him.

“Yeah.” She responds, humming a bit as she speaks. She doesn’t have much to talk about. Sometimes it seems like every day is a bad day when she’s at home. That’s why she tries not to be. He cocks his head, like he’s trying to figure her out, before speaking.

“That fuckin’ sucks. “ He says, words too-causal, worried in the undertone, a secret message like morse. She blinks back ‘I love you’, because she does. It’s as simple as that.


End file.
